


And You Can Tell Everybody This Is Your Song

by starrywrite



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, But it's there, Fluff, M/M, Mild Angst, Slow Build, bc i am me and i need the angst, like very mild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-14
Updated: 2014-11-14
Packaged: 2018-02-25 08:12:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2614640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starrywrite/pseuds/starrywrite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The stars and moon are still high in the sky when Phil finds himself being awoken by the sounds of Thom Yorke’s song “Ingenue” coming from his next door neighbor’s flat. The music fills his thoughts and invades his dreams, bringing him back to consciousness and even though his neighbor’s piano playing is more pleasant to wake up to than his usual alarm, it doesn’t take away from the fact that he’s still being woken up at three in the morning. </p>
<p>also known as, “my asshole neighbour keeps playing the piano at 3am” au</p>
            </blockquote>





	And You Can Tell Everybody This Is Your Song

**Author's Note:**

> hello babes!! so a while back a saw a prompt that someone had sent into phanfic(.tumblr.com - for anyone who didnt know (though im pretty sure everyone knows about phanfic)) and i thought it was just Too Good not to write so here i am!!
> 
> this is more word vomit-y than what i usually write, but i hope you like it anyway!! also if u were interested [HERE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqLgEahgyZE) and [HERE](http://howellsprincess.tumblr.com/post/94606356230) are the two songs i talk about dan playing in the fic if u wanted to listen to him actually playing them and cry with me :^) 
> 
> but i digress; anon who originally requested this, whoever u are, if you read this i hope you like it :D and anyone else reading it, i hope you like it as well!! <3

He’s at it again.

The stars and moon are still high in the sky when Phil finds himself being awoken by the sounds of Thom Yorke’s song “Ingenue” coming from his next door neighbor’s flat. The music fills his thoughts and invades his dreams, bringing him back to consciousness and even though his neighbor’s piano playing is more pleasant to wake up to than his usual alarm, it doesn’t take away from the fact that he’s still being woken up at three in the morning. 

This isn’t the first time Phil’s been woken up by his neighbor - Dan, he thinks his name is but he doesn’t remember because they’ve only met once and that was the day he moved in - playing piano at the wee hours of the night, and he wonders if Dan-he-thinks is nocturnal or has insomnia because at least once a week Phil can hear him playing piano late at night. And usually, he doesn’t mind the sounds of his neighbor playing piano. His neighbor is actually a really good piano player and in fact, he finds listening to him play really soothing and relaxing - when he’s not playing at _three o’clock in the damn morning_. 

Phil rolls over onto his other side as he hopes that the music will stop and he’ll quickly fall back asleep - but Dan-he-thinks continues playing the song, and Phil can’t help but to groan a little. It’s late and he’s got an early start to his day tomorrow, and it’s going to be hard for him to fall asleep to the sound of Dan-he-thinks playing the first thirty something seconds of “Ingenue” on repeat - apparently he’s yet to learn the rest of the song. It doesn’t take long for hearing him play the same part of the song over and over again to get annoying, and Phil grabs his headphones, placing the earbuds in his ears and turning up his music to drown out Dan’s. 

Phil contemplates moving to a flat that has a ban on pianos as he finally manages to fall asleep. 

* * *

Phil slept in, and now he’s running late to his breakfast (except now it’s become brunch) date with a friend, and his socks don’t match and his hair is unkempt as he rushes out of his flat, hoping to catch a cab as soon as possible before he’s even more late. He’s looking down at his phone, texting a plethora of apologies to his friend, and doesn’t notice the person going to enter the lift as he’s exiting it, their bodies inevitably colliding. 

Phil’s phone falls to the floor, lost in a midst of papers and he hears a distressed, “Shit - I mean, fuck - I mean, I’m sorry!”

“No, no, it’s my fault,” Phil reassures him, kneeling down to help him gather up his papers. He gets a quick glance at him, at his round face and big brown eyes and deep dimples and messy mop of brown hair atop his head, but it isn’t until he realizes that he’s holding sheet music that it comes to his attention that he’s had a run in with his piano playing neighbor.

If he could, he would laugh at the utter irony right now because his piano playing neighbor is the reason he’s so late in the first place too, what with keeping him awake until four in the morning. But Phil just freezes for a moment. There’s so much he wants to say to him right now, most of which falling under the “could you please stop playing your piano so fucking late?” category, but he’s been rendered speechless and he isn’t quite sure why. 

(Although he convinces himself that it has absolutely nothing to do with how cute his neighbor is). 

Dan - he notices his name written in black Sharpie marker on the outside of his folder containing all of his sheet music - catches his attention by handing him his phone and apologizing once more, before disappearing into the left. Before he leaves, Phil manages to catch a glimpse of his hands; his longer fingers are stained with blank ink and his fingernails are chewed and ragged, and all Phil can do is picture them flying across the black and white keys of his piano. And for the rest of the day, Phil hears piano music in the back of his mind. 

* * *

It’s three in the morning and Phil can’t sleep because Dan won’t stop playing the piano. 

He still hasn’t been able to master “Ingenue” and Phil is so tired of hearing the first thirty something seconds of the song over and over again, and honestly how does Dan manage to stay up so late every single night? 

Phil considers filing a noise complaint to their landlord, but he really doesn’t want to be _that_ neighbor and when he thinks about it, Dan really isn’t doing any harm - truthfully he’s just being a bit annoying - so once again, he pops in his headphones in an attempt to drown out Dan’s piano playing and hopefully fall asleep before sunrise. 

* * *

Surprisingly, one night Dan doesn’t play his piano, and Phil feels like he should be happy about this but for some reason, he finds it harder to fall asleep to the complete silence then he did when Dan was keeping him up. 

* * *

The next night, Dan picks up right where he left off and goes back to playing “Ingenue” and call him crazy, but Phil is relieved to hear him playing again. In fact, he actually missed hearing it - which doesn’t make a lick of sense to him because he spent so much time internally bitching about how annoying he thought Dan was. Maybe he’s just gotten used to hearing him play piano night after night or maybe he’s slowly starting to actually like listening to Dan play piano night after night, but he’s happy to hear Dan playing “Ingenue” tonight. 

He silently roots for him to learn the rest of the song, however, because he knows Dan can do it - he’s insanely talented, from what he can hear - and even if he is starting to like listening to Dan play piano, he’s still sick of hearing the first thirty seconds of “Ingenue” over. And over. And over again. 

* * *

By the end of the month, Dan finally learns all of “Ingenue” and Phil finds himself being lulled to sleep by his neighbor’s constant attempts at perfecting the song. 

It’s been a process to say the least; Dan’s been playing the song all week, but hasn’t managed to learn all of it yet. Tonight is going to be the night he finally learns it, he thinks Dan has decided because he starts playing early - early for him, anyway - and Phil gets comfortable in bed with his laptop and a mug of tea while he listens to Dan learning the remainder of the song. Phil learns soon enough that this is not easy for him; throughout the night he hears Dan grumbling curse words to himself whenever he fumbles on certain parts of the song, and at one point he gets so frustrated with himself that he bangs his hands down on the piano keys repeatedly, the loud screeching of the piano keys replacing the beautiful, soft melody Dan was once playing, and Phil winces. He wishes Dan wouldn’t be so hard on himself. 

Finally, however, Dan manages to get all of the song down right and Phil hopes he’s proud of himself (because in some strange way he’s really proud of him). And Phil imagines Dan smiling to himself as plays the song one more time, the soft piano music lulling Phil to sleep at, once again, three o’clock in the morning. 

And as he finally starts to drift off to sleep, Phil thinks about telling that Dan’s piano playing is pretty perfect, even if he does play at some pretty inconvenient times. 

* * *

Another night Dan doesn’t play piano. Phil pulls out his laptop and looks up piano music to help him fall asleep. 

* * *

The next song Dan learns to play is a Muse song. 

Phil can hear “Sunburn” coming from Dan’s apartment, and he’s starting to wonder if his neighbor is actually nocturnal because he lately he _only_ seems to play his piano late as fuck at night. But the Muse song floats through the bents and pushes through the walls, infiltrating Phil’s bedroom and even though he has an early meeting tomorrow at work, he smiles listening to Dan playing a song by one of his favorite bands. He wonders if Dan likes Muse as well, he wonders what his favorite song and album are, he wonders if he harbors sexual feelings for Matt Bellamy. 

Phi’s been thinking about Dan a lot lately, wondering about his interests outside of the piano and who his favorite music artists are. He wonders what Dan does for a living and what his life is like, and there are just so many questions he has for him and all Phil wants is to just sit down with him and _talk_ with him. But they’ve barely had one conversation and Phil figures it would be weird to just knock on his door and ask him about his day. 

Dan stops playing, without finishing the whole song, and Phil closes his eyes, listening contently as Dan restarts the song and plays it over again. He wonders how long it’ll take him to learn the entire song. 

* * *

Phil remembers the first time he met Dan, and he isn’t quite sure why he remembers that day tonight of all nights; maybe because Dan’s still serenading him with Muse and Phil can’t sleep.

He remembers a baby faced brunette bounding into the building with boxes in his arms and he looks utterly exhausted, but he’s smiling from ear to ear and Phil offers to help him with his things. Dan insists that he’s okay, but Phil can see he’s still got a pile of boxes waiting for him and he knows how much moving sucks so he offers again to help him out, until Dan finally accepts. They make small talk - “Hi, my name is Dan.” “Hey, I’m Phil.” - and Phil picks up one of his boxes before following Dan up to his flat. 

“Oh, you live next door to me!” Phil tells him eagerly. 

“Looks like my mum was wrong about London’s hospitality,” Dan replies with a wide smile and Phil chuckles a bit. He follows Dan into his flat and the brunette tells him he can just put the box down on the floor where he’s standing. “Thanks again for helping me,” Dan says. “I really appreciate it.”

“That’s okay,” Phil says, stuffing his hands in his pockets and he stands there awkwardly for a moment, swaying back and forth on his heels because he isn’t sure if he should stick around and offer to help out some more or leave. 

“I promise I’m not going to be an obnoxious neighbor who parties all hours of the night, by the way,” Dan tells him. “I’m very low maintence and I don’t have a lot of friends - you’ll probably forget that I even live here.” 

That night, he heard piano music coming from the younger boy’s flat for hours. 

 

* * *

The walls separating Phil’s and Dan’s flats are far too thin, Phil decides tonight. Because tonight, he’s not greeted with the sound of Dan playing piano, but instead the sound of Dan crying. 

The loud sobs that wrack Dan’s chest are echoing in Phil’s flat and the strangled cries that choke him fill the air, and Phil covers his ears because it’s just too much. He can’t take hearing Dan so upset, and his heart actually aches hearing Dan cry like this.

He feels so helpless right now, just lying in his bed knowing that Dan’s in pain - whether it’s physical or emotional, Phil doesn’t know, but he knows that his neighbor is in pain nonetheless. But he comes to the conclusion that if he were to do anything that would be even more awkward because he and Dan haven’t even had a full conversation yet and it’s not exactly customary for your neighbor to knock on your door because he can hear you crying hysterically in your flat. But Phil wants to help him because he can just _hear_ how badly Dan must be hurting tonight, and all Phil wants is to take him in his arms and remind him that tonight will end, and tomorrow will be better. 

Phil wishes he could play the piano, because maybe for once, Dan just needs someone soothing _him_ with the beautiful sounds of the black and white keys.

* * *

Phil sees Dan getting into the lift the next morning. He wants to go over to him and hug him and ask him if he’s okay, but he just offers a small smile and a wave. After all, they’re only just neighbors; not even friends, and Phil doesn’t want to scare Dan off before he gets a chance to actually have _something_ with him.

Despite his red rimmed eyes accompanying the deep bags beneath them, Dan smiles back. His dimples, however, don’t show and Phil is dying to know what’s killing him inside. 

But they’re just neighbors, so he doesn’t ask. He can’t ask. 

* * *

Dan finally learns all of “Sunburn” that night. 

His music drowns out the sound of the thunder outside, and flashes of lightning accompany him as he plays. It feels like a concert being put on just for him, and for the first time in his life, Phil doesn’t feel afraid of thunderstorms. 

* * *

Dan’s crying again tonight. 

Phil can hear him and he sounds damn near hysterical, and he feels such a strong need to do something - anything - but he doesn’t know what to do or how to help.

He thinks that there is a room in Dan’s flat that must be connected to his bedroom in some way, which would be how he can hear Dan so clearly whenever he’s in that room, and he figures that Dan must be in there tonight. So Phil balls up his hand into a fist and hesitates for a moment before bringing his knuckles up to the wall and tapping on it lightly.

Dan’s cries stop almost immediately, and Phil’s heart starts racing with anxiety. He isn’t really sure why he did it; it’s not as though he and Dan have some secret morse code between them or something, but a part of him knows that he did it because he wanted to remind Dan that he isn’t alone. 

The silence that follows is deafening and Phil feels sick to his stomach because he’s certain that he’s embarrassed Dan by letting him know that he was listening in on his breakdown, and despite the fact that his intentions were noble now he feels like the world’s biggest jerk for doing this in the first place, and he sure as hell is not going to win the neighbor of the year award at this point - if anything he’s going to win the insensitive arsehole of the year award, and -

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

Phil isn’t sure what it means, and he wishes he had Dan’s phone number or something so he could call him and ask if he’s okay. And there’s still a part of him that feels so helpless and at a complete loss at to what to do, but the fact remains that Dan knows that he’s here for him. Or at least, he hopes that’s what Dan got out of this. 

Phil taps on the wall once more, and Dan mimics him, and silence falls after that; it sort of feels incomplete, like they didn’t get an actual ending, but at least Dan has stopped crying now and Phil just really hopes that he feels better now. 

And this is a start, though Phil isn’t sure what exactly it’s the start of.

* * *

They run into each other the next day, and it’s awkward and Dan can’t meet Phil’s eyes as he mutters, “I’m really sorry about last night - if I, like, kept you up or bothered you or anything.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Phil reassures him. “I’m sorry for listening in and I guess intruding and the whole knocking thing, I don’t really know what I was thinking -”

“Thank you for that,” Dan cuts in. “This may sound crazy but I kind of needed something like that. Sometimes I just get so wrapped up in my mind that I forget that I’m not actually as alone as I think I am, you know?” his face is red as he says this, and Phil wants so badly just to hug him and tell him not to feel ashamed of how he feels and remind him that his feelings are valid. That _he_ is valid.

And it’s so mental because Phil’s never felt such a strong connection to someone he barely knows, but it’s almost as if he and Dan were meant to meet in the way. As if the universe fought so hard for their paths to cross and now the stars have aligned and they’re in each other’s lives - even in the slightest way - and maybe this was all just meant to be. He feels utterly crazy for thinking it but the fact that Phil went from loathing the fact that Dan played his piano and kept him up and now he positively loves it. Hell, life is crazy and sometimes things happen that don’t make any sense, and maybe this is one of them. 

“You can always talk to me if you need to,” he tells Dan. “I know we don’t know each other very well, but I’m a good listener and 

Dan smiles a little. “I might just take you up on that,” he says. “Thanks, Phil.” 

It’s kind of surreal to hear Dan call him by his name - the fact that Dan actually remembers his name after the limited interaction they’ve had it kind of surreal. Maybe he’s just as prevalent in Dan’s mind as Dan is in his.

“Oh, and speaking of me being a good listener,” Phil adds a moment later. “I really like your piano playing.”

Dan blushes, and it’s kind of the cutest thing Phil has ever seen. “Thank you,” he says. “Um, I know I play really late at night but -”

“It’s fine, I like it,” Phil insists. “I really like listening to you play.”

“Well,” Dan says, and he smiles at Phil shyly. “Maybe I’ll play more often now that I know you’re listening.”

Phil smiles in return. Because the last thing he wants is for Dan to stop playing.


End file.
